CircleK 7Eleven and Octopus

The three things that I liked about Hong Kong are the convenience store chains here and a very effective smart card system Octopus. Even though they are not very unique to Hong Kong but their wide presence in such a small region make a lot of differance.

The two store chains operate nearly 24 hours… and of great help during odd hours when everything else is closed. This was my first encounter with these two international store chains.
One can enter the shops and find the general utility items... food items… drinks…(all sort of drinks ;-)) even umbrella… chocolates... Cakes…gift items….news papers… all in almost of the things that we generally require… not in all varieties etc but surely it can suffice the need of the hour when it arises.

The biggest advantage is that these shops are available around every damn corner …
In fact one can find very few other such shops which are “not 7Eleven or CircleK” and most of them are country specific… like Indian or Philipino etc etc

These shops have been a great help to me since they r the only ones who can cater here food requirements during odd hours…
You can come out of office at any damn hour… it can be 2 or 3 am… you look for something to eat and voila…. Here are the only open shops
Even when my other 24x7 faithful friend…. McDonalds failed me at times…. These two never did.

There were occasions when i came out expecting the Mc D to be open… and only to find that the McDonalds was closed on that day from 0000 till 0600… L I had not taken dinner expecting that I could get food anytime at McD…. But then no problem…just roam around a little and you are sure to find one of these two shops… you can get packaged food… and survive….simple as that….

Another good companion here is the octopus… it is a smart card system here a nice alternative to the general ebit card system we follow for general transactions. The advantage is that this is used everywhere… from trains...bus…tram… ferries…. 7Elevens...CircleK… Mc D...KFC and at every other damn place where you need to make a payment.

You need not have a bank account…. Just pay 150 bucks and get a card. Alter that all you need to do is to keep on recharging and using. Recharging is also simple…on all railway stations there are machines… put your card in it… put cash in it and it will recharge…. Or alternatively any 7Eleven or CircleK shop will do it for you.
The main thing is that you need not be worried about what if it is lost and all…. You will only loose money that Is charged at that time on the card. Anyone and everyone can have a card and it is universal….easy for merchants since they do not have to maintain connections with different banks... networks... and then the logo’s like we accept these card and don’t accept those cards…

I remember a few years ago, BEST has brought similar concept for the bus system. But it failed since people did not respond well… mainly due to difficulty in recharging the cards which could be done only at major bus depot.

I think this is a better form of plastic money for day to day use than the debit cards that we use….

One More Ganapati Missed.....

Since past 4 years.. I am able to make it home for Ganapati every alternate year…. 2004…. Yes I was there….. 2005…. Jeddah… 2006... Again home…. And now 2007… Hong Kong….. so chances are bright that I will make it next year...
Also every year Ganapati festival marks… my blog anniversary….
I wrote first blog during Ganapati of 2005….

This year I missed allthe festivals…. Starting from holi… then all the shravan… like dahi handi and all…. Now I after missing Ganapati, I am all set to miss Dasaraa too….just hoping that I will not miss Diwali also.. :-(
I really hate to miss any of the three festivals… Holi… Ganapati and Diwali…

It’s one year since last Ganapati but all the events are still fresh as if it was yesterday… may be because there are no new memories to overwrite them.. assembling of the ”Makhar”… then going together to bring the idol home… this is where the fun starts. Then comes visiting to friends and relatives…. Going together to see “Sarvajanik Ganapati”
Daily “Aarati” that too multiple times…. “Jagaran” and in the end “Visarjan”

All the sequence seems like a dream from here…

This year I think I m missing not being there for multiple reasons…one reason being the festival of course there are other reasons too… Deepa of course is another major reason…
Also since I am supposed to get engaged with her once I am back…that excitement is also there… Then the ongoing job hunt is also adding to the cause. I need to come back to Mumbai at the earliest so that future plans can be finalized…
So many things going on together….

Sometimes I think there must be some reason behind Ganapati bappa making me go around the world during his own festival…… first time2.5 hrs behind and now 2.5 hrs ahead. New countries…new cities…new people… new cultures…. Definitely the god of wisdom is making me wiser every year by enriching me with new experiences…
May be he wants to make me realize the value of family by keeping me away from my loved ones frequently…

The more I think…. More I miss... more I miss more I feel about it… more I feel about it then more is the urge to go back… but I should stay back… till the project completion…

I have always believed that whatever happens… happens for a good reason…
It is just a matter of time before we find what that “good reason was”. I hav learnt that even though the current scene may look bad… but whenever I have looked back to such scenes in from the past…. They always make me realize that they have always led to something good which otherwise would not have been possible…

Jo hua achha hua… jo ho raha hain… achha ho raha hain… jo hoga who bhi achha hi hoga… :-) wait n watch….

Hong Kong……Some random observations

The very first thought that comes to my mind is that this is nothing but an advanced version of Mumbai…. Same story repeated but in a sophisticated manner….
Both are harbors…both are islands…. Both are financially important cities….
Both are full of peoples…population density is very high…people are highly dependant on railway system, Bus and taxi for their daily travels… one more addition in case of Hong Kong is presence of trams. Again all the offices are concentrated in one area and all the residential areas in other parts….. Climate is humid…..
On any given day the scenario at Churchgate and Hong Kong railway stations can be easily compared….. in the morning thousands of people…. Rush there from other areas… and in the evening the other way round…

It is difficult to find out normal eating stuff like biscuits and all…
One day I went out especially to find out something to eat in the area around the office. Went across so many shops… all u can find is some cakes and pastries.. a few varities of sweets and chocolates…. That’s all…
Kaahi thikani biscuits disataat but they r so costly that to an Indian mind they seem disproportionate…. Even when I compare just currency units… I just could not fathom how someone can pay 20 dollars for some small pack of biscuits similar to crack jack… for which I would never pay 20 Rupees… L

All the shops are full of fridges… they contain only 3kinds of drinks….. First category is beer…. Second category is ice tea… and third category for remaining “alpasankhyank” like… juice… water…cold coffee…some energy drinks etc etc…. surprisingly almost negligible quantity of cold drinks… especially the ice tea seems to so popular that all the major players including Pepsi coke nestle; everyone has some brands to cater.

Not only cold tea… for normal tea also... These people have so many varieties…. And all of them taste so different… and true to the Chinese traditions.. with weird taste and smells….in past almost 2 months I have never been able to finish a full cup of tea… somehow I keep on trying but every time manage hardly half cup somehow….

People are game crazy…. Sony has a tight hold on the youth…In train.. in restaurants you can see many people hooked to their gaming consoles…. Not only the children but the middle aged people also can be seen hooked to the gaming consoles…. In trains….on the road… in the parks… in restaurants…. Everywhere…. And all consoles form Sony !!!

People are highly self dependant… u can easily see a very very old man going along the way I could never imagine person in such condition going all alone in India…. They are seen everywhere… doing their bit for the society…. Roaming around independently and even working. On my way home there is a fruit shop. It is open 24x7. When we go in the morning, we see all the young people running the shop... and when we return late after midnight we see a few old people. And I really mean old, some even hardly walking with help of stick. But they run the shop!!!

That’s all for this episode…. More stuff in coming days….:-)

Don't panic...

The title itself should state the condition I am going through... life has become office and office has become life. There is no personal life for me in past 3-4 months. I come to office at 9 in the morning work till 12 00 or 1 00 in the night. Go back sleep. Come to office again at 9 00… those 8 hrs in between contains time for all other activities like travel to and fro... sleep… morning activities etc etc……
There also came a time when I had slept just 3-4 hrs in 72 hrs and was continuously in office.

When I shifted to Hyderabad for this project, I was on a book reading spree. Almost a new book every week was the routine. I had just finished “tough Choices” and was halfway on the “Hung By my Family Tree” when I shifted to Hyderabad. That was in mid February.

After that I could complete hardly a few more pages of the book till date.
I have not seen a single movie in past 6 months!!!!
Late nights in the office seem to have become a norm now for me.
There is no special about being home at 3 - 4 am and again coming back to office at 9 00 am.
When I joined this project I have already anticipated these things. And I took plunge for sake of adventure into this project. Just to test my abilities.

I really began to think about impact of this adventure on my personal life when I was in Mumbai for almost 20 days and could meet my parents and Deepa hardly 2-3 times.

I had not anticipated this much impact. My team had not picked up the way they were expected to.

Now that I am single, these things I can afford. But what when I am married? Definitely this is not the kind of life I want. I think I need to take care of this from my next project.

May be in my next job…

Nonetheless, these past few months have been a testing of my endurance. I learned that I can hold nerve when everyone around seems to give up. Keep my head up when everyone around seem to be loosing faith. Things eventually worked out.

I remember the novel “Hitchhiker’s guide to galaxy”. In it the guide had two words written on its front page, “Don’t panic”.

Those two words have become key words for me now a day. No matter what,
“Don’t Panic”

The worst impacted plan seems to be my plan to relocate to Mumbai. Earlier I had planned to shift to Infosys Pune and then from there to Mumbai. But now I am forced to shift to move to Mumbai directly. The only way out I can see is to switch the job.
Parents are planning to get me married by first quarter of next year. So I must be in Mumbai by November – December. Again an emergency action situation; given the fact that I am in Hong Kong.

But again… Don’t panic.

And so the search has begun. As like all the previous situations…I am sure this too will resolve. I just need to keep my head up….

Back to Basics…

It was after almost a gap of 7 years that I climbed in the local train at morning rush hour.

For office work I came to Mumbai with a never before opportunity to stay for around 15days. Initial plan was to stay at home and make trips to client office from there.

Obviously I landed in Mumbai on the weekend. Intention was clear… a weekend at home after 3 months.

After rest of additional one day... I set out for the office on Tuesday. I came to platform at around 8 15 am. After ticket and all I was at platform 4 waiting for the8 24 train…. I remember, we used to take same train to attend a 10 00 lecture at college.

The train entered the platform and I jumped as usual…. The only diff was that earlier I used to enter first class….this time it was second class. It didn’t make any difference anyway… I jumped inside the train as it approached the plat form… nothing had really changed as far as skills were concerned.

As I entered I got the glimpse of changes in the 7 years…. There was no seat available... not even fourth seat. I had to stand…the only relief was that I was standing in the area between seats.

Soon that relief was gone. Rush began to increase… by mistake I had entered through the door that was just after the ladies coach and the first class compartment. So obviously the rush was more… as the rush begin to set in… as expected we were pushed more an more inside… then I realized one change… my ability to withstand rush pressure had gone down. I was exhausted by the time the train reached Andheri and the rush reduced.

I was to go to Lower Parel. But the by the time I got down at Dadar to change train, I was really not willing to enter the train again. It was only after my contact person from client office made me realize that the train was still the fastest way to reach the office in time that I headed back for the slow train platform.

In the end when I reached office…. I was feeling more exhausted than I would have felt after whole day of working at office.

From next day onwards I shifted to the company guest house at Santa Cruz. After that I made a few travels from Virar to Lower Parel but every time I got bored of it. I think this experience will definitely have impact on my plans for settling down in Mumbai.

Even work wise it was too hectic…I soon realized that if after a job switch to Mumbai also, if these are my office timings then it will have bad impact on my personal life.

Snap Of Sower Parel Station At around midnight...

Deepa’s office was hardly 20-25 mins from my office by taxi and still I could manage to meet her only once in her office… Parag also works at ITC Hotel which is again nearby... I could not meet him also. I think its time to think about my working habits too….

Life after world cup….

World cup is over for India… The team is back at home…
The blame game is over… scapegoats are being searched for…. Chappel quitted…Kumbale retired from one day…Some high level meeting yesterday… to decide upon what to do with this game and now…
Finally all the dust has settled down…


All of a sudden everything is changed…. All those “World cup special’ ads no more aired… All the tigers are gone from the screen… I still remember the news heading on TV after India got defeated by Bangaladesh… it said “Kagaz Ke sher.. Pitch par Dher…” that is “Lions of paper are lying dead on pitch” I think it was inspired by the Pepsi Ad that showed Indian team entering the ground as tigers…

Only player that is seen in ads now a day is Irphan Pathan… may be because he was not part of the team in any match.

All of a sudden all players have become a matter of fun… emails are floating around comparing a photo of Sachin, Dravid and Sehvag with the three monkeys…comments... cartoons… jokes…. All of a sudden everyone seems to have found a target. Security is tight around the houses of the players. Throwing stones… tarnishing, burning images of the players have become a routine now a day.

But one thing makes me wonder… all these protests against players… and other activities are seen on weekdays too. Don’t these people have any job to do apart from protests and damaging houses? Or is this indicator of the unemployment?

In my opinion our country needed something like this t happen…. Even though the event is disappointing; personally I am very much relieved that India is out of the world cup… there are quiet a few reasons…

1. We are in the mid of the summer… there is shortage of electricity in many states… how many megawatts of electricity is saved... :-)
   
2. People would not have worked… how many man-hours saved… this point has two effects…
   a. The people who would be present at work… only physically… but no concentration on work…
   b. People who don’t come to work at all…. In either case we would have effectively lost millions of man-hours…
3. It will help people rethink about all this blind following… and treat the game as a game. Finally players too are human and prone to mistakes…
4. As I can see... One good impact has already happened… BCCI is planning to put a cap on how many endorsements a player can do… that’s a very good thing. Now our player will get some time to practice the game.

Impact of the third point was very much related to my own project team also. Had India continued into the super8… I would have found it very much difficult to keep the project on track. Now things are a bit in control.

We are a country of people worshippers… what we need to realize is that the players are also human… we put such a heavy burden of expectations on their shoulders… they might crumble under that burden itself... and the game will be faltered…

Another thing is that whatever we may think... the players are professionals… they are playing for money.

The game should be treated as a game between two teams. And players as players…. Winning and loosing is part of the game and it should not be linked with nation pride and all those big words…
our nation’s pride is not so cheap that a defeat in a match will damage it. If we agree that the players are representing the nation then even when our team loose a match, we should still be supporting them because they are our representatives…

if they don’t perform… remove them but we should not be treating them as gods… they are players and should be treated as players….

Lunar eclipse through Powershot S3IS

Snaps of lunar eclipse on the day of Holi...

Somehow I managed to get up early at around 4 45am...

Went out with camera looking for a suitable location. I roamed through the campus but street lights made my task difficult.

Finally I decided to seat on ground in the car parking area. I had never tried taking snaps of such a faint object before. i had habit of using the "auto" mode only. But that auto mode was not at all able to focus on this "object" so did some experimentation with the settings and finally managed to take some snaps. These are not the full snaps. u have cut the portion containing the moon. rest is all black.

snap 1 taken at around 5 30 am...

Snap 2 5 35 am....

snap3 5 38 am

Snap 4 5:45...

Snap 5 5:52

Snap 6 5:58....

Snap 7 6:04... by this time i was bored... and decided to return to my room in the guest house.

before returning to the room i took this snap...

Snap 8 on return i tried to take some snaps through the glass window of the room.

This was the last snap i took before i slept again....

Never So Busy....

It's more than a month since i put up my last post.
Life has been too busy since then... it's full of pressure... excitement... work... The task is uphill. Aggressive client... challenging requirements, Stringent deadline and to add icing on the cake, there is a fresh inexperienced team...

The stage is set perfectly for a spectacular show.Only time will tell what sort of show it will be..... I hope and shall try for the best. The only downside I find is that it is becoming difficult to find some time out for myself. I even could not go home this time for Holi festival.

This is first time I am shouldering an entire project. Till now I have always been part of teams in which other members were equally good or experienced in the tasks. Here the scene is entirely different; I am the only experienced member in the team.

Surely there is en excitement in the air.
Not only the professional front but also on the personal front.
Deepa’s parents visited home today... to discuss about our future… the engagement... wedding etc etc. so life is rocking to the fullest resulting in the lapses in posts due to lack of time.

I have spent more than a month in Hyderabad now and still could not find time to explore the city. Only place I could explore out was the Golkonda Fort.

I felt very sorry for the state the fort is currently in. Although it is in far far better condition than the forts in Maharashtra, still given the fact that the state tourism department arranges for a daily show there about the history of the fort, the fort should have been in a better maintained state.

Life has become fairly routine now…. I am staying in the company guest house. Campus is far off from the main city. As a result life has become a bit restricted inside the company. Only occasional visits to the city on the weekends and that’s it.

Let’s see how many more days before I get bored and move out to some PG accommodation outside in the city.

Bye Bye Bangalore...

I left Bangalore for Hyderabad Today.

It's been 3 years now... I came to Bangalore Almost exactly 3 years back; that was on 2nd March 2004.

We were seven people staying together then, all transferred from Infy Pune to infy Bangalore. Me, Parshant, Pankaj, Prashant, Manish, Rohan and Anupam. Our first house was in Koramangala S.T. Bed layout. Stag Saptagiri Appartments.

Flat was tooo specious... 3 bedrooms with attached bathrooms... 2 big halls one kitchen and 3 balconies. We stayed there for almost 6-7 months. There was one big problem about that flat… the building was adjacent to a big sewage and it used to give out that typical smell. So we used to keep all windows closed that faced the sewage. But soon we all were bored of it. Also number got reduced from 7 to 5. Manish left the job and Rohan moved out after certain disagreements within us. The house was toooo big for 5 people and rent was also more. So we decided to change the house.

So finally one fine day we arrived at our new house in BTM layout. This was also a nice house. It was ground floor of a bungalow. Two bedrooms, a hall and a kitchen. We were 5 people staying together. I don’t remember the house number now but it was at the end of (second last house) 23rd Main of BTM 2nd stage.. Then I left For Jeddah. By the time I came back, number had further reduced. Prashant’s parents had shifted to Bangalore so he was now staying with them. Amupam had already left for a long term assignment in US. So now only two members remained in Bangalore were Parshant and Pankaj.

They had shifted to still smaller room in BTM…. It was a one room kitchen. House No. 495... 29th Main BTM 2nd stage… Soon I was back from Jeddah and we were three again. Now this house was just sufficient for three. We stayed together for a few days. Then one of my college friends Shirish got a job in HP Bangalore. He joined us in that small house. Now it was difficult to manage for all 4 with a single bathroom and all leaving at same time for office.

So we decided to split. Shirish and I decided to move out. We first moved into another one room kitchen house. But we fount it too small to manage for two people. So we left that house and we shifted into a separate house nearby this was sometime in Jan 2006. This was a two room kitchen.

After some days one more person joined us. Manoj. He had just joined HP along with Shirish. Now we were three staying together.

After some days Parshant got transferred to Infy Mysore. Pankaj then again joined us in our house. The strength was now 4. This continued for almost 3-4 months when Pankaj left infy... left Bangalore and shifted to Pune.

Now it was Me ,Shirish and Manoj.

This continued till today. Today I moved out. Apart from Prashant, who is now settled in Bangalore, I was Last man from the group that had initially come to Bangalore three years ago.

I really don’t know when I will go back to Bangalore now. This city has given me many good friends. I shall never forget days spent in Bangalore.

Bye Bye Bangalore….

Hong Kong...

Last two weeks I spent in Hong Kong.
First time I visited a country outside the Middle East. Finally broke the jinx.
Although I was too busy with work (Hence no blogs…) and could not visit the popular tourist spots, I did manage to do a lot of traveling across the islands.

Here are a few useless experiences :-)

The story starts from the airport…. The runway is parallel to seashore. As the plane lands, you can see the sea a few meters away. After entering the airport, another major surprise was awaiting. They had a underground metro train to transport passengers from runway to the immigration area!!

Next on the line was my first exposure to systems that “Trust” the people. Till now I had only read about them. I came out of airport to the bus station. I already had enough information with me about reaching to hotel. I entered the Bus. No conductor. People were dropping the exact fare amount into a box near to the driver. I could not stop from imagining what we would have done in India under such system?
Temperature was OK… about 17-18 deg. I dumped my luggage in hotel room and went roaming around the area.

Given that Hong Kong is a former British colony, I had expected that English would be a very common language. Nut instead I found that even after so many years people are not so good at English. Although English is one of the official languages, Cantonese is the common language in use.

Next I was exposed to the Life line of Hong Kong… local metro railway “MTR’. I can easily see it as a counterpart of local railway system in Mumbai. The scene at platform was no different except the fact that people were disciplined. Same rush of people in the morning and the evening in different directions.

The client office was in the central region where all other administrative offices were situated (just like our Fort – Churchgate Area in Mumbai). So every morning we used to become part of the river of people… train frequency was very good… with a gap of just two minutes. In spite of so many people traveling the stations are maintained very clean.
Apart from disciplined people, there was one more reason or that, eating was banned in the train or on the platform.

Another thing I noticed was that the city was very much disabled friendly. All the buildings had some or the other way allowed the disabled people to move around. All the steps were generally accompanied by either a lift or a slope. All the areas had different patterns engraved on the flour to guide the blind people. The patterns changed indicating different messages stop or where there was a turn. The pattern would change from strips to blocks and so on. These patterns are followed on most of the footpaths also. When it comes so signals, the traffic signals have two indicators one is the sign in red green and another is the audio signal for the blind.

I had also expected that we would face food problems. But nothing of that sort happened thanks to a sizable population from the subcontinent. After some days stay in hotel we moved into serviced apartments. This was a typical Chinese place. We could smell the food from the road. Roaming through the market we saw all those “famous” things about Chinese food…. Lizards, frogs and all other animals I don’t know about. We went into a shop that served the fishes. The fishes, crabs, lobsters were kept live in tanks. One could choose the fish and have the dish prepared.

I had entered in Hong Kong on a on arrival 14 day visa. The total stay accounted for 17 days. So in order to get the visa extended we had to visit Macau… erstwhile Portuguese colony. We entered Macau. Spent some time there and came back to Hong Kong. This act of immediate return made us a subject of interrogation. The immigration authorities suspecting us to be potential illegal immigrants had a brief interview of ours before stamping the visa again.

Not much shopping…. I found that there was not much difference in prices in India and Hong Kong for the standard branded electronics items. So I did not buy anything from there except some small gifts and an antique watch I could not resist buying. I just told my colleague that this watch can be face but still I m willing to take that risk.

On my return journey, While at Suvarnabhumi Airport of Bangkok, I thought of getting some Thai coins. I went to nearby exchange counters, and handed over a Ten HK Dollar note to the girl at the counter. I still remember the surprised and curious look on her face since all others were exchanging at least a hundred US dollars. Somehow she was even more surprised when I requested for “Coins only”.

Life as usual…

My last post was on 5th Dec… Nearly a month ago.
It is not that I did not get time to write… but nothing worth writing was happening.
Or may me nothing happened I would have liked to write about.
Finally this feeling of “not happening” itself had made me write this.
Again it is not that there were no events….as I have started writing, so many events are passing through my mind.

Biggest event was Sachin’s wedding on 14th Dec. It was an event for which I had planned since long. And there are some incidents associated with it also especially about the Air Ticket.
I was almost certain that I would miss the wedding because of planned trip to Hong Kong. I thought of using the tickets for some other visit to home. I called up the Yatra.com for rescheduling the tickets. To my horror, they said that I can not reschedule the tickets. So I asked about cancellation. This was even bigger shock. I was not permitted to cancel the tickets too. If I cancelled then all I would get back was the taxes that I had paid. That is 975*2 and I would loose the ticket cost and booking charges etc etc... a loss of about 4000 was imminent. I was advised to travel anyhow.
Luckily I decided to wait and watch and cancel the tickets a day before I leave for HK.
The trip got delayed and I was saved for the day.
As a result I made it to Pune along with Vinayak to attend the wedding. Still I did not feel like writing much about it may because it was not as surprising as his engagement a year ago.

Return Journey from Pune was another big story… We left from Pune at around 4 00pm expecting to reach Mumbai by 7 00pm. Thanks to Traffic, I made it to Borivali at 11 00 pm (Yes… Borivali. This was the blunder. Instead of Dadar we came by Borivali bus.).

Actually this HK trip had another big impact. It made me prepone me the biggest event in recent period in my life. I was supposed to meet Deepa on 15th Dec to decide fate of our relationship. I was forced to prepone it and visit home on 25th and 26th Nov. (this was the “some other visit” I mentioned earlier.). I will write about that big event some other time.

On Picnic front also nothing much happened apart from a one day visit to Infy Mysore.
In fact I am feeling very sad that I wasted two big weekends just sitting and sleeping at home. For so many reasons, I could not gather friends to accompany me for a picnic.
All I did was sit at home and read books.

In office, days have been pretty much busy because of this Hong Kong matter.
Just before 31st that is on 29th we had a team outing for my project. It was fun.

Hmmm… I ended up writing so much even when I say there was nothing.
Now I realize that these events were not the ones that excited me and the ones that excited me I am not willing to write at this moment.

Now I am supposed to travel to Hong Kong this week end. Life again is expected to become exciting…